“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
– Ronald Reagan
It was a New Year:
The New Year and a new Presidential Administration provided us, of the Republican perspective, a much needed chance to reevaluate our current predicament, and mark out a deliberate path forward. Our goal is to return to political respectability – moreover, public responsibility. While electoral success is important, the most important task at hand is earning back the trust of taxpayers and voters whom trusted us.
There is an old saying that “you have two ears and only one mouth for a reason.” I have taken this advice over the years, and observed more than I’ve opined. However, serious times call for serious words – and with all due respect to the Republican Party, I feel compelled to stand up and speak out against what I view as the unraveling of the political tent I still call home.
Lately, the GOP is a shrinking shell of its once proud self; and there are no two ways about it.
That said, national political trends provide an appropriate backdrop for what has happened and may soon get worse here in South Carolina. Republicans across the nation have, by and large, been driven from power and into the shadows, frightened and emasculated.
Alan Greenspan explained this seismic political shift leftward by saying, “The Republicans in Congress lost their way. They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.”
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson went so far as to label the GOP “a mess and a fraud,” asking rhetorically if “any Republican candidate [can] claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government?”
Meanwhile, Democrats not only hold strong majorities in both houses of Congress and the White House – they have successfully jumped aboard a progressive zeitgeist demanding “change” and are using this momentum to push through a decidedly non-conservative agenda that will shape our country for decades to come. Needless to say, the Grand Old Party finds itself in quite a pickle.
But not so in South Carolina, right?
Republicans hold eight of nine statewide elected offices, both U.S. Senate seats and four out of six U.S. House seats. Republicans also control both state chambers, leaving the political headwinds plaguing the GOP nationwide seem to wane when you step into the ruby red Palmetto State. Yet the truth is not so clear. In fact, I see the same Republican rot that spoiled the national party eating its way through this state as well…
A GOP Review: Part One